Radio Ink Magazine June 7, 2021

Recently, I’ve spent some time listening to a local radio station, Oldies 97.3 (WSWO-LP), located in the Dayton suburban city of Huber Heights. In case you aren’t familiar with the city, here’s an interesting factoid: it’s noted as being the “America’s Largest Community of Brick Homes.” But I digress. The more I tune in to the station, the more I find myself wanting to return and listen again. And that’s the real gem here. They entice me to listen. There is no lure of a major prize giveaway, no highly produced bits or characters. The playlist is interesting, offering the usual stable of familiar music as well as some actual variety, sprinkled each hour with one-hit wonders and B sides that would have seldom been heard had it not been for…

Have you noticed that two-day deliveries are taking four to five days to arrive? Shipping companies can’t hire enough warehouse workers and delivery drivers. Have you noticed how long it takes to get the food you ordered? Restaurants can’t hire enough kitchen workers and waitstaff to serve their customers. Service companies nationwide are seeing just three or four job applicants respond to online recruitment ads that used to generate 40 to 50 inquiries. The limiting factor for business growth in 2021 won’t be a shortage of sales opportunities. It will be the shortage of employees. The Wizard of Ads Partners are rapidly writing recruitment ads for hundreds of businesses across America. Phone lines are ringing and e-mail inboxes are dinging with new requests for recruitment every hour. The recruitment ads we write are radio ads. You should…

Last year was the end of a decade, and what an ending it was. Most of us had never endured the trials of a pandemic. The peak of the pandemic created issues and challenges that at times felt endless, with little hope. Although we do not have this crisis in our rearview mirror yet, we are on our way to recovery. In spite of the many negatives, there are life lessons we can take from this to be successful when it is all behind us. Although there were many cancellations and closures, we still had some clients on air. However, these businesses were in serious need of help handling uncertain market and staffing conditions. There were also many things happening with their customers, and the entire way of doing business and interacting…

As a manager, how many times have you felt like banging your head against the wall would be more productive than your sales team’s actual willingness to implement the training you gave them? I know I’ve felt that way. Because of this, many managers get discouraged and simply stop preparing for their sales training meetings each week — or stop doing meetings altogether. They feel like they’re wasting their time, and nobody cares. Their conclusion: sales training doesn’t work! Look, I’ve definitely been there. Honestly, some days I still get that feeling. But what I know is sales training does work, and it’s the most important thing a company can do. To make your sales trainings work, all everyone needs is a little R&R. Rest & Relaxation? Nope. Rescue & Resuscitation? Maybe some…

“Jewelers are in the love business. We stand out because we’re about hate.” Steven Singer says when he started more than 40 years ago in Philadelphia, he was “a young filthy jeweler, and now I’m an old filthy jeweler” people hate, but that’s okay with him. “I hate Steven Singer!” That’s the messaging for Steven Singer Jewelers. Singer, unfiltered, is proud to say that when other jewelers go right, he goes left, away from the big box purveyors of shiny bits and baubles. “You know you can take any ad used by the corporate jewelry world, remove the name of the company, insert your name, and it would work. It would be a crappy ad, because those guys sell all the same stuff, in the name of love.” One thing Singer realized when he…

Adam Curry has long been at the tip of the spear of technology innovation — including several groundbreaking ideas that have given new life to the audio space. As an on-air personality, Curry — born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Amsterdam from age 7 — is best known for his work as a VJ, producer, director, and writer at the MTV Network in the late ’80s. While working his “day job” at MTV, Curry was tinkering with ideas to bring the global network into the digital age by registering and building mtv. com while MTV focused on systems like AOL. (MTV, realizing how important that mtv.com URL was, eventually bought it back.) Always seeking the cutting edge of media and technology, Curry created one of the first digital agencies, On Ramp…